


The Highwayman

by Crocuta



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: In which Jimmy is a highwayman and Thomas is his sweetheart, M/M, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:45:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1272187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crocuta/pseuds/Crocuta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Highwayman

_The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees_ _  
_ _The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas_ _  
_ _The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor_ _  
_ _And the highwayman came riding,_ _  
_ _Riding, riding,_  
 _The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door._  
  
  
  
Thomas could remember the feel of Jimmy's pistol pressed against the small of his back. The dangerous feel of a cold muzzle lifting up his shirt and dragging against the ridges of his spine – and the voice of the highwayman in his ear.  
  
“Well, well. What do we have here?"  
  
Highwaymen did not care if they pulled your purse from your coldfingers or if you threw them down willingly. Even ones that spoke as though they could not stop grinning.He clasped his unsteady hands around the few coins in his pocket and rose his shaky arm upward where the villain could see it.

“Come, surely you have more than that on you.”  
  
“I can assure that really is all."  
  
Hands roamed over his sides looking for a hidden purse, and lingered for what Thomas thought was a moment too long at the inners of his legs. Thomas stared out at the moon trying to ignore the feel of the gun pressing at him again. It was up in the branches sporting new buds, little wisps of clouds kept it company amongst the twinkling stars.  
  
“I guess I'll just have to let you go then, no use robbing someone poorer than poor.” The man had a voice like warm leather and dappled leaves. “But at a price.”  
  
Thomas felt himself roughly turned around. His eyes barely had time to register that the pistol was no longer pointed at him before feeling lips over his own. It was soft and fluttering, like a butterfly landing. Their lips had barely brushed before the highwayman pulled away and mounted his chestnut stallion. The darkness obscuring everything but fair hair and wide grin.

  
  
The smile, the kiss, and the moonlight where all a long way from here.

 

  
  
  
Thomas groaned as he tried to stretch. He could feel his wounds bruising under his dressing gown and he was sure the taste of copper did not belong in one's mouth. The rumble of the King's men resounded from downstairs, his blood boiled when he heard his plates and chairs scrape as they made themselves at home. Thomas had his hands roughly bound behind him and his jaw swelled where he had been cracked with a musket.

“This the whore?” one already drunk solider had said against him as he was tied.  
  
“Mhhyeep. Lookit the hair, jus' like commander told us.” Another lifted a few strands of his hair with his musket.  
  
“Now I'm sure you have the wrong-”

 _Crack._ “Now that's enough outta yer pretty little mouf. The solider dumped his musket into Thomas's lap and pet his head like he was some pretty little lass. Another drunkard gave a whiskery wet kiss on his mouth and gave his face a rough slap.

  
“Keep watch good while we wait for your little man.” Thomas heard the dead man say.  
  
So this was what it was about. Jimmy must have gotten himself spotted. Always flirting danger, even now with a mouthful of blood and loose teeth he couldn't keep from smiling. The strapping blonde shaking his reigns and riding off with rapier in hand just did that too him, even though he was the reason for this predicament.  
  
Through a swollen eye Thomas could see the moon hanging down between oak branches, just as full as the night when they met. He worked the binding furiously and let his mind drift off to his highwayman.  
  
  
  
It was Jimmy's way of greeting to catch Thomas off guard. Either the rapier moved silently against his throat or the pistol as his back. For the briefest moment Thomas's heart thudded with fear.  
  
“Come to collect something you've forgotten last time?” Thomas said as evenly as he could, feeling the gun move away from his back.  
  
“Mmm, a treasure I've been thinking about since my last pass through. If only it would grant me their name.”

Thomas smiled in spite himself, how very smooth a flirt this highwayman was. “Would it perhaps be Thomas?”  
  
“Surely as the most dangerous thief is named Jimmy.”  
  
“If I see someone dangerous around here I'll be sure to ask them.” Thomas stole a look out of the corner of his eye. Jimmy's eyes sparkled good-naturedly, his hair was pushed lazily and knotted to the side from a hard day's riding. Firefly's winked against the meadow and hill they stood in. The sweet summer perfume was not as sweet as the feeling Jimmy put in Thomas's chest.  
  
Oh, _Oh._ He was as handsome as Thomas remembered. A crooked hat laced under his chin, the coat of fine velvet, and the trousers of doe-skin. The tanned skin and golden hair, fresh out of a wet-dream.  
  
“I thought I'd never find this place again,” Jimmy said lowly moving towards Barrow. _Or you_ his eyes seemed to say in the darkness.

“And I've begun to think I've dreamnt it all up after too much ale. A kiss from a highwayman indeed.”  
  
Jimmy leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Thomas's. “I'll just have to refresh your memory then.”  
  
Thomas moved first, his lips full and firm against Jimmy's. Jimmy's mouth moved against Thomas's, savoring the feeling of his lips between his own. This kiss was certainly nothing like the briefest bit of otherworldy contact they shared under the light of a fullmoon. This was felt with teeth and tongue. It pulled them down onto the grassy hillside and left them gasping for air. It made sweat drip from them in the summer air. Their cries mingling in the chorus of crickets and in the sweet waves of the moonlight.  
  
Jimmy cradled Thomas against his chest. Few words went between them. Their mouth's moved with unspoken feeling, their spirits sang with the movement and magic that Midsummer burned into them.  
  
Jimmy tousled Thomas's hair. His arm heavy and boneless from love, fingered the long black-strands.  
“If I gave you something, would you keep it?” Jimmy whispered as the sun rose.

“Always,” was the honest answer against Jimmy's chest.  
  
Jimmy didn't speak for a few minutes, but was focused on the strands of hair he held between his fingers. The highwayman gently placed Thomas's loch back onto his shoulder, a red love-knot plaited into it. Thomas yanked a knife through his hair and pressed another loch between Jimmy's fingers.  
  
  
  
  
The knot now had been cruelty ripped from his hair by King George's men. All that was left was it was a knotted bunch of nappy hair that lay on Thomas's shoulder and the sight making his eyes sting more than any pain he was in. Judging by how high the moon was in the window, it was long past the time Jimmy had promised to meet him. Thomas's mind turned the whistle of wind between the floorboards to the _tlot-tlot_ of the stallion Jimmy rode.

The musket gleamed from Thomas's lap, greeting him like an old friend. He struggled against the bindings that bound him against the base of his bed. Thomas sagged against the floor, pulling and bruising the heavy ropes that burned against his flesh. He could feel the skin rip under the friction and bleed into the twine.  
  
If he was dead Jimmy didn't have to walk into this trap to come and get him...  
  
  
  
  
“They tried to catch me,” Jimmy mumbled sleepily against Barrow's chest. The winter was cold and they were drawn up into the furs on Barrow's bed. The hearth crackled and danced warning off the wrath of Yule. Barrow pressed his lips against Jimmy's head.  
  
“I take it they were not successful.”  
  
He felt Jimmy's lips turn upwards against him. “Not even close. I keep whats most important to me here-” his handed patted on the bed. “I had nothing worth going back for, not even that defenseless carriage.” He stifled a yawn. “Another 'man hit the carriage later that day and got hauled off.”  
  
“Just be careful and always come back to me.”  
  
“Always.”  
  
  
  
  
Thomas finally pulled a sorry looking hand free from the tangle of knotted rope. He held the musket heavy in his hand, the trigger his, and stared it down like a rabid dog. Thomas swallowed heavily, Jimmy would _not_ be caught and hung because of him. Jimmy would not be tarred and spiked outside of the capital as a warning, not because of him.  
  
Tlot-tlot tlot-tlot

Thomas bravely shoved the musket under his shirt. The cold muzzle moving over the ridges of his chest and pulled. The shot echoed out over the village warning his lover.  
  
Red poured from his lips and chest, tawny sunrises danced in his eyes and taste of summer kisses danced over his tongue. The name of his lover on his lips.  
  
  
  
“This night will be my very last hit, ” Jimmy rose up on the stirrups of his horse. Jimmy was so high up he could hardly reach Thomas's hand, the other held the reigns.  
  
“Just come back to me,” Thomas' voice was soft – fearful, as it always was when Jimmy left.  
  
“Watch for me by the moonlight, if I'm not home in the sunrise. By moonlight, only hell should bar me the way.”

 

Jimmy leaned down to press his lips against Thomas'. There were no telling whose tears were whose or who broke away first. Jimmy rode off, one hand on the reigns the other one his rapier.  
  
  
  
The solider's kicked Thomas' down the stairs and drug him through the dirt out to the road. “A pity,” a solider yanked Thomas's head up by his hair. They bound Thomas against a tree for the highwayman to see. His darkhaired-head tumbled down over his breast, blood still spilled from his chest.  
  
  
 _Tlot-tlot tlot-tlot_ came the ghastly echo of hooves through the white dawn mist. The stallion reared and brayed like a steed from hell, driven mad as his master at the sight at the bottom of the road. He held his rapier high and cursed to the skies. His pistol aimed true, his finger moved in the moonlight downing as many men as could who camped by his fallen lover.  
  
The musket's fired, their smoke made it impossible to see.  
  
There were too many of the king's men. They overtook Jimmy within a few heartbeats, his horse was downed and he was roughly thrown from its back. Jimmy lay broken in the dust beside Thomas, their blood mingled together. They lay where Thomas had always watched for his lover to come home by moonlight, and now they die in darkness there. Blood seeped into the handsome spurs on his boots, his velvet coat's brass buttons were washed red. The rise and fall of Jimmy's chest started to slow as the smoke settled.  
  
He felt the cold muzzle of a musket at the side of his head. Jimmy did not see his death coming down the hollow metal tunnel. Instead, he had his hand clutched over a loch of hair that was always bound by his throat, the other clasping long-cold fingers. His eyes were closed. He felt nothing but the warmth of summer and heard the sound of crickets.

 

_Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,_   
_When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,_   
_When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,_   
_A highwayman comes riding,_   
_Riding, riding,_   
_A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door._

  


 

 


End file.
